Restoring home folder

Hi all, trying to restore home folder from 2TB external drive after doing fresh install of 20.04. The process stops when I get this message(could not restore the following files.Please make sure you are able to write to them./home/raymond/.mozilla/firefox/frsfcbet.default-release/lock) Can anyone help with this? Thank you.

rm -f /home/raymond/.mozilla/firefox/frsfcbet.default-release/lock

And make sure you own all the files in your home directory, that you need to own.

Own all the files that I need to own? How do I do that Akito ?

sudo chown $USER:$USER -R /home/$USER

Akito I appreciate your help but I am not at the level you are at-all and your last attempt is beyond my capabilities, not sure what to do with what you suggested.

Open a terminal. You can find it under System or Settings or something like that in the Start menu.
Then, execute following commands:

sudo rm -f /home/raymond/.mozilla/firefox/frsfcbet.default-release/lock
sudo chown $USER:$USER -R /home/$USER

If prompted for a password, enter yours.

OK Akito, did that and nothing happens in the terminal after I typed my password, do I need to have the 2TB drive plugged in? am I addressing the drive or the computer?

If you typed your password and confirmed each entry with the Enter key successfully, then you shouldn’t face permission issues, anymore.

well thats the rub,I confirm the entries and the terminal just goes to the state where it’s waiting for a command, also when I copy/paste your command I get a note that shows quotation marks?

Can you record what you are doing and post it here? Maybe we can make a sense out of the situation, then.

Hello.
Yes, that’s how the terminal works.
The two commands given by @Akito don’t give a response when executed.

using this reply method I don’t see how I can include a screenshot of this problem, is it possible?

Maybe you could try https://asciinema.org/ for this purpose

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Hi Fast.Edi, does that mean that the problem is fixed and that I can retry to restore my home folder to 20.04?

You can test if the lock file is now deleted:
either with
ls ./home/raymond/.mozilla/firefox/frsfcbet.default-release/
in the terminal (must be on the 2TB harddrive for this.
Or in a filemanager. Just navigate to the hidden directory (you can show the hidden files and directories with the shortcut “Ctrl + H”).

ok in red I see"addonStartup.json.1z4 permission sqlite" and "lock xulstore.json

I would suggest you just try to copy the hidden directory “.mozilla” once again to your new /home directory and see, if the permission error is gone.

Could you please read these articles, so you get to know some necessary basics, which would ease up finding a solution to your issues, a lot:

Hi Akito and Fast.Edi,the lock seems to have been removed but now I get ( restoring:~/.profile Details)it freezes there and after a minute Deja-dup backup drops out. ? I have read the info suggested by Akito but I am a user and I may have to use command line once or twice in a year so wont remember these commands, all I do is check the mail, the wx,do some reseach and I use documents to store a lot of electronic info and of course pics in pictures so I really would like to recover my home folder.

I guess, in this case it would be easiest for each party involved, if you just recorded your screen while you are restoring things. This way we can understand what exactly is going on when you are trying to restore your home folder.